150 



THE POPULAR SCIEXGE MOXTHLY.—SUPPLEJIEXT. 



as many of the schools Jo not return the number 

 of their scholars, it is probable that the attend- 

 ance is at least 30,000. Similar figures might be 

 given from other dioceses. 



It must be remembered that in America, as in 

 England, a very large proportion of the Roman 

 Catholic population consists of laborers and of 

 other classes receiving small wages, and that the 

 common schools are all free. The priests have, 

 therefore, to carry on their own schools, not only 

 without a grant, but in most cases, I believe, 

 without the aid which denominational managers 

 in this country receive from the children's pence. 

 In some cases they appear to charge a fee, but in 

 the presence of the public schools, in which no fee 

 is charged, and which are attended by the chil- 

 dren of wealthy tradesmen and professional men, 

 the levying of a fee on the Irish bricklayer must 

 obviously be a matter of extreme difficulty. The 

 whole cost of maintaining denominational educa- 

 tion must, therefore, in most cases come from the 

 contributions of the faithful. What adds to the 

 difficulties of the zealous priest is the discovery 

 which even the bricklayer is very likely to make 

 before he has been very long in the country, that 

 as a rule the common schools are incomparably 

 superior to the schools of the Church ; and I 

 was informed on excellent authority that, even 

 where Catholic schools are within reach, the high- 

 er educational advantages of the common schools 

 attract Catholic children iu considerable num- 

 bers. 1 



Under the present Constitution of the United 

 States the struggle, whenever it may be renewed, 

 will have to be carried on, as it has been carried 

 on hitherto, in the separate States. At present 

 it is in the power of the Legislature of any State 

 to permit appropriations from the Public Educa- 

 tion Fund to denominational schools. In 1876 

 an attempt was made to deprive them of this 

 power. The Judiciary Committee reported to 

 the Senate the following amendment to the Con- 

 stitution : 



" No State shall make any law respecting an 



1 The School Board of New Haven, Connecticut, 

 recently reported that of the children on the rolls of 

 the schools other than high-schools, during the week 

 ending January 18th, sixty-three out of every hundred 

 were of foreign parentage. A very competent author- 

 ity estimates th:it, of these sixty-three, fifty were 

 either Roman Catholics or Jews. From what I know 

 of New Haven I think it very unlikely that of these 

 fifty more than ten are Jews. It therefore follows that 

 forty percent, of the children in the common schools 

 of New Haven are probahly the children of Roman 

 Catholic parents. There are three Roman Catholic 

 "parochial schools " in New Haven. 



establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free 

 exercise thereof; and no religious test shall ever 

 be required as a qualification to any office or pub- 

 lic trust under any State. No public property, and 

 no public revenue of, nor any loan of credit by or 

 under the authority of the United States, or any 

 State, Territory, district, or municipal corporation, 

 shall be appropriated to or made or used for the 

 support of any school, educational or other insti- 

 tution under the control of any religious or anti- 

 religious sect, organization, or denomination, or 

 wherein the particular creed or tenets of any re- 

 ligious or anti-religious sect, organization, or de- 

 nomination, shall be taught. And no such par- 

 ticular creed or tenets shall be read or taught in 

 any school or institution supported in whole or in 

 part by such revenue or loan of credit, and no 

 such appropriation or loan of credit shall be made 

 to any religious or anti-religious sect, organization, 

 or denomination, or to promote it3 interests or 

 tenets. This article shall not be construed to pro- 

 hibit the reading of the Bible in any school or in- 

 stitution, and it shall not have the effect to impair 

 rights of property already vested. 



"Section 2. Congress shall have power, by 

 appropriate legislation, to provide for the preven- 

 tion and punishment of violations of this article." 



This amendment, though it begins with a clause 

 directed against the creation of a religious estab- 

 lishment of any kind, was notoriously intended 

 to prevent the creation of a religious establish- 

 ment of that particular type for which the Roman 

 Catholic hierarchy are anxious — an educational 

 religious establishment. The amendment in a 

 somewhat different form had been carried in the 

 House of Representatives by an overwhelming 

 majority — 180 to 7. In the Senate, on the first 

 reading, it was carried by 27 to 15. On " final 

 passage" 28 voted for it, and 16 against it; it 

 was therefore lost — a constitutional amendment 

 requiring a majority consisting of two-thirds of 

 those voting. The senators who voted against 

 the amendment are not to be regarded as friendly 

 to granting aid from public funds to sectarian 

 education; they were simply contending for the 

 old principle of the Democratic party — State 

 rights. That any encroachment on the part of 

 Congress upon the free action of the several 

 States in relation to their internal concerns 

 should be resisted, is the leading article of the 

 Democratic creed. Up to the time of the civil 

 war the Democrats contended that if any of the 

 States chose to maintain slavery, Congress had 

 no right to interfere, for slavery was a " domestic 

 institution." Slavery has gone, but the Demo- 

 crats are still jealous of any limitation on the 

 powers of the State Legislatures. Fourteen out 



